~ The Writings of S.L. Woodford

Deadlines in December

As you may have guessed from one of last week’s posts, early December was a time of deadlines for me. With six pieces due to various publishers in a two-week time span, my life became a model definition of the word entropy. Books piled up on my desk, dishes stacked themselves in my sink, and dirty laundry piled up on my floor, as I tapped away at essays, paper proposals, blog posts, and articles. I drank obscene amounts of tea and undertook elaborate procrastination schemes, like organizing my closet and catching up on my mending. Most of my weekends and many of my evenings after work found me working at my laptop, baggy-eyed and sweat-shirted, as my thick, bobbed hair–the receiver of my nervous fingers–curled away from my head in alarming angles.

All the while, I was tired and anxious, anxious that I wouldn’t produce good work, anxious that I wouldn’t meet my deadlines. But word by word, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, I completed each piece.

With six pieces due to various publishers in a two-week time span, my life became a model definition of the word entropy.

In terms of my current writing ability, all of the pieces contained some of my best writing. A happy illusion that I know will neatly fall away in the next few months as I learn more about life and grammar. I shall re-read these pieces then and blush, thinking of all the ways I could have told the story in clearer and more poignant ways. Yet, I shall also find one idea, one sentence, one metaphor in each of those re-reads that perfectly crystallizes my experience of truth–gently reminding me that if I continue to endure weeks over-flowing with deadlines, I shall become a writer I can respect.